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Rep. Black Urges Passage of Hire More Heroes Act on House Floor

January 6, 2015

Press Release

Click the image above for video of Rep. Black’s remarks

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Diane Black (R-TN-06) spoke on the House floor to urge support for H.R. 22, the Hire More Heroes Act. This legislation introduced by Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) would incentivize the hiring of veterans by exempting those with qualifying health insurance plans from the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs from the employee threshold under Obamacare’s employer mandate. Following Rep. Black’s floor statement, the House passed H.R. 22 by a unanimous vote. Below is a transcript of her remarks, or for video, click here.

M. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Hire More Heroes Act.

In my home state of Tennessee, we have over 525,000 veterans who served our country in both times of war and peace—people like my son, Steve, and my husband, Dave.

But today, too many of these Americans are struggling to find work. In fact, the unemployment rate among post-September 11th veterans is chronically higher than the national unemployment rate.

I believe we can do better.

After all that our veterans have sacrificed for our country, Congress should—at the very least—make certain that Washington does not stand between them and access to a steady job.

The Hire More Heroes Act will help accomplish this by exempting veterans who already have health insurance from being counted as full-time workers under Obamacare’s employer mandate – meaning that business owners can hire veterans without fear of being slapped with an Obamacare penalty.

That is why this body passed the legislation by an overwhelming vote of 406 to 1 last year.

Unfortunately, our efforts were stonewalled in the Democrat controlled Senate - but today we have an opportunity to start anew.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the Hire More Heroes Act and I thank the gentleman from Illinois for his work on this critical measure.

I yield back my time.

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Congressman Diane Black represents Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District. She has been a registered nurse for more than 40 years and serves on the House Ways and Means and Budget Committees.